In this interview, Rahul Wadhwa talks with Suyash, the head of sales at Troopier, about the company’s enterprise‑grade software that transforms raw screen recordings into polished videos and step‑by‑step documentation, delivering cost and time savings for large‑scale transformation projects. Suyash explains why hiring a high‑quality enterprise Sales Development Representative (SDR) is a critical bottleneck: SDRs are the first touchpoint, must understand complex enterprise pain points, and need to drive discovery and feedback loops. The conversation details how Troopier partnered with the School of SDR, trusting its rigorous training and candidate vetting to reduce interview bandwidth and secure top talent. Suyash outlines three non‑negotiable hiring criteria—U.S. B2B enterprise experience, stability (no frequent job hops), and proven quota attainment. Leveraging these criteria, Troopier completed a two‑round interview process in a single day, hiring Abhinav. Within his first week, Abhinav completed onboarding, delivered mock pitches, and booked a high‑quality demo meeting, demonstrating an exceptionally fast ramp‑up. Suyash highlights the broader strategic impact of such SDR feedback on product, GTM, and sales teams, and contrasts the depth and trust of specialized SDR recruiters with generic hiring consultancies.
Chapters
Hi, Suyash. How are you doing, man?
Hi, Rahul. I'm good. How about you?
Pretty good, man. Thank you so much for doing this. Appreciate it. For context, so that people have, people know what you're, what they're looking at. What are you building at Troopier and what kind of SDR were you looking to hire?
So Troopier is an enterprise-grade software. It helps a lot of teams into converting raw screen recordings into polished videos and step-by-step documentation guides. The output or the business outcome is far beyond these, you know, documentation guides or these polished videos. It helps teams to reduce the time that it takes to create these enterprise-grade videos. And there are a lot of companies which operate big transitions and business transformations. The project sizes are of more than a billion dollars. So there, Troopier can really be very useful and it can reduce Or it can, you know, have a significant cost impact.
I used your product back in the day and in 2024, I was in SaaSBOOMI San Francisco where your company was awarded the best AI product back then. I'm pretty sure same thing holds true even till today. Tell me the biggest roadblock in finding a good enterprise SDR, which is what you were trying to hire.
So the challenges that comes with enterprise deals are they're really complex. And the feedback loop is also really important. So anybody and everybody that we hire at this stage where Troopier is, it's a very early stage still. We have landed a lot of great logos by our side, the likes of Salesforce, Amazon, Adobe, et cetera. We are very picky and choosy about whom we hire. Why? Because the SDR is the starting point of contact with all the users who we might onboard later in the upcoming months. But the feedback that we need from the SDRs is really important. So the quality of the candidates matters a lot and they are the face of the company. So these large size deals, if we want to crack these deals, we really need to have great representatives from our side at every point of the funnel. Hence SDRs are being at the forefront of the funnel. It is really important for us to have the right quality of the candidates who are not only good in having or holding the conversations, but are also great at understanding what the pain points of the users are, because these are exploratory calls, right? Cold call is just for understanding, like, is there any pain point that these guys have? And post that, then there are, in enterprise sales, there are a lot of discovery calls which are done to actually get to the point, like, what is the actual pain point? Now for the SDR to have all this context, it is really important for us to hire the right candidate. Who has the right experience and who can also thrive in such a competitive space? Because there are also a lot of companies which are doing sort of similar work, but in different domains. Let's say for an example, an individual in U.S. gets approximately seven cold calls every day. Now the competition is huge, and U.S. is the target market for almost all the companies across the world—not only from India, but from everywhere. So the kind of candidate and the quality of the candidate that we need is really important for us because this is where the entire funnel originates from. So this is a very important piece of the puzzle that we need to solve. And hence we are very selective in hiring the candidates. And that's why the quality of the candidate has to be top notch.
Why do you think you were able to trust SchoolUp STR to fill this role?
So I've been following you from around a year approximately, and the candidates Or the success stories of the candidates that you have shared has been really impressive. And I had also been told by a lot of people that the quality of the training that you give is also amazing. So naturally you have been into sales and the people that you or your team would filter would already be a better fit for the roles that, you know, we are planning to hire, or even if somebody else is planning to hire. Naturally, the selection criteria or, or the benchmark that you guys set is quite higher. So there are 2 things, right? First is the funnel or the number of interviews that I have to take to select the candidate, they are reduced. So my bandwidth and my team's bandwidth gets saved. And the other part is we're actually able to hire the right candidates who have the right caliber, the right skill sets to actually come and perform.
Despite the fact that you were hiring an enterprise SDR, you had the fastest process, hiring process ever. How do you think you were able to hire an enterprise SDR in a day? I remember it all, it only took us 2 rounds.
So my criteria is really, really simple. What I want is 3 things. First is they should have real B2B US experience, that too in enterprise. That's the first qualifying criteria. The second one is they should not be having any frequent job switches. Because I want somebody who has been in a firm and who has grown inside that firm and who has delivered for more than a year or 2, right? So that also helps me to understand that this person is not somebody who would just get things done on a fluke and then would just switch to another company and then start the same thing there as well. So for me, stability is also really important. And the 3rd and the most important thing is they should be quota achievers. They should be top performer. They should be, they should have demonstrated track record of achieving quotas. They should have qualities of outperforming wherever in whichever teams or whichever capacity they have been a part of. So these are the only 3 criteria that I look forward to. And that's about it. So these are the very simple things that I keep in my mind while filtering or selecting any candidates.
You have been head of sales for many years. Why do you think companies are Spending 15 days, what do you think they are looking for, which you were able to look for in like 2 rounds of interviews?
So just to be able to hire the right candidate, you need to have a very clear mindset. What do you want from the candidate, right? A lot of companies need a lot of figuring out because they are unsure. And when they are unsure, they interview, let's say, 10 candidates and then put all of them on hold and then they compare among themselves. So if you don't have a clear idea or benchmarking, like this is the benchmark. That if anybody would beat it and I would just go on and hire them. So it was very simple for me. I've been hiring since quite many years now. And I get the gist just from the one round of interviews enough for me to understand who is the right candidate and who is not. So with Apinav, it was a very binary and very transparent black and white picture that we had at the end of the round that he had with me. We were very sure and we were very clear with him that this is the guy that we were looking forward to. He meets all the criteria that we have set up for ourselves. And he definitely qualifies all the hiring criteria. Then we should go ahead and, you know, there is no point of delaying it. So we went ahead and we just hired him.
Yeah. You called him a great find. I remember that. And this is before I said, okay, you know, let's do a testimony. Why did you call him a great find?
Just when he had joined within a week, his onboarding was super fast. He got onboarded. He learned the product. He started giving mocks right in his first week. By the end of the first week on a Friday night, he had joined on Monday and on Friday night, we were using a dialer and he was also there virtually. We were connected and there itself he had booked a meeting and the quality of the pitch that he delivered, it was exceptional. Begin the, begin your journey at a new company on a Monday and by the Friday evening, if you're able to get One demo booking that is like exceptional. This is the fastest ramp up time in the enterprise sales, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. And his experience, he's actually utilizing his experience. It's not only limited to his outputs in terms of just getting the demos or just booking the meeting. He also, you know, completes the feedback loop. Like these are the types of profiles this kind of pitch is resonating with, and these are the kind of profiles where we should use this kind of pitch, and these are the profiles which are sort of irrelevant. We should not be pitching to them. So these kinds of feedback, you know, create larger impact than the, than the individual contribution that he is a part of. So these kinds of feedback, they also help the other team members and it also helps the GTM team. It also helps the sales team. So I think Yeah. The guy that, you know, you have recommended us, he has been a gem of a guy.
Yeah. I don't doubt about it. I've known him for many years. I think back in the day I was not able to find a role which was a perfect fit for him. But the good part is, yeah, I think we stayed in touch and I think the timing just perfectly matched. So I'm glad it worked out for you. My last question, what would have been difficult about finding someone like Abhinav yourself? Let's say if you were to do this on your own, you'll have to speak to so many people and to find a diamond like him. But anything else comes to your mind?
Discovery is the problem, I would say. So a lot of great candidates are there in the market. They are still looking out for jobs. They are unable to find you or me. Since you have a greater reach, people are able to find you because you're specializing in sales. Let's say if somebody is hiring for Troopier, they are hiring for multiple roles and they're not dedicatedly focusing on one type of role. So the depth that we get from you or the network that you have built over the years is actually coming forward to help you and help us so that you're able to get great candidates and you know them. You've done also background verification for them, which is something that we also do, but we do after the selection is done. If somebody is already, has already validated a candidate, like you had mentioned for Abhinav, your quotes were also there on that sheet, which I had referred to. You had also mentioned that he is just an excellent candidate and if you would hire him in a—
With the candidate like Abhinav, I can get him a job in like definitely 2 days. And I think with you, we were also able to prove that, right? Yeah. Because, because I think the kind of maturity, the kind of confidence, the kind of experience, I think the relevant experience, it checks just all your boxes. 2 jobs, both 2 years, enterprise only. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It checked all the boxes for us. So it was really easy for us. But now coming back to the question that you had asked, like, why was it difficult for us or the companies, like in any company, right? That is trying to hire SDRs. What's the difference between hiring it through School of SDR and doing it by themselves is I think the quality of the candidates and the breadth and the depth of the candidates that School of SDR brings. Like you are in the industry since last 10 or more years. So you've been in touch with a lot of candidates. And you know who is the right candidate and who is not. So this is also an exceptional skill to filter out the right candidates because there are also a lot of companies, a lot of consultancies which are doing all types of hiring services, right? But they would just float all the resumes that come to them, comes to them. They would not validate. They would not fact check whether the candidate has whatever they are mentioning. Is it correct or is it not? So these are some of the things that are, that makes you stand out from the other consultancies. And when we talk about companies hiring by themselves and taking help of School of HDR, I think the difference is clearly there because you're, you've been operating into this ecosystem for quite a long time and there's a certain trust that you've built from these candidates. So they trust you and that's why they're able to reach out to you. And since you're in touch, you have an active pool of candidates, possibly all the time available. whom you can directly recommend to the good companies that are out there. So I think this is where the difference comes.
Thank you so much, Suyash. I am not kidding when I say that this is my favorite testimony so far. I think you gave me more than what I could have asked for. So thank you so much. Appreciate it, man.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Couldn't have been happier to share this testimony. You know, I would be more happy to do it over and over again if keep getting candidates like Avinash.
